The invention disclosed herein relates generally to cooking appliances, and more particularly to a cooking appliance having a latch plate shield for improved guidance of cooling air and exhaust air.
Cooking appliances have been available, for example, in configurations known as built-in wall ovens and one type of built in oven that is commercially available is a double oven which features two independently operable convection or non-convection ovens. Such double ovens can be installed in a kitchen of a home residence, another room of a home residence, or in other settings in a manner such that one of the pair of ovens is located above the other of the pair of ovens. Moreover, one commercially available configuration of a double oven comprises as well as single control panel element, typically located above the uppermost one of the pair of ovens, which can control the operations of both ovens.
Built-in wall ovens can offer advantages such as convenient single-location access for items to be cooked, such as foodstuffs and the like. Additionally, if both ovens are operated in overlapping manner—i.e., foodstuffs are heated in both the upper and lower ovens during overlapping time periods—then the heat produced by both ovens mutually reinforces the heat retention insulative effect that operates to promote good heat retention by the ovens and, thus, less energy consumption by the ovens in producing their heat. While built-in wall ovens can offer advantages such as noted above, there are several factors to consider concerning the installation of built-in units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 notes that, in the kitchen area, appliances are installed either as upright units or, more widely, as built-in units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 further notes that appliances which are built in require extensive modifications to the wooden carcass and facings with front panels which match the other kitchen units. U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 further describes other perhaps detrimental aspects of such built-in units, including the fact that wood is sensitive to dampness and the effects of heat and the requirement to provide each appliance with its own power supply, often requiring installation to be carried out by a specialist electrician. Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,557 notes that the electrical appliances of such built-in units are generally not stackable for static reasons.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353 discloses a free-standing warming appliance 10 that can optionally be provided with a pair of oven support members 210 to directly support a built-in oven 14 and, in this respect, the free-standing warming appliance 10 and built-in oven 14 supported thereon may present one solution for installing a built-in unit. Each of the oven support members 210 is inverted-U-shaped in cross section and has inner walls that form a plurality of spaced-apart engagement arms 218 with mounting tabs 220 provided at their lower ends. The tabs 220 are sized to be inserted into a plurality of spaced-apart and collinear slots 222 formed in the top panel 76 of a warming drawer.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, each of its support members 210 is attached to the warmer drawer chassis 20 by inserting the tabs 220 into the slots 222 in the outer enclosure top panel 76 so that the arms 218 engage the top panel 76. Screws are then inserted to attach the outer wall 216 to the outer enclosure lateral walls 70, 72. It is readily apparent from the above description that the support members 210 can be installed and removed with access to only the lateral sides of the warming appliance 10.
With each of the support members 210 attached to the warming appliance 10, the top walls 210 of the support members 210 are generally parallel and spaced-apart to form a generally horizontal support plane 223 for the built-in oven 14. As shown in FIG. 14 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, the oven 14 rests directly on the support member top walls 212 within a cabinet in a kitchen. Therefore, the free-standing warming appliance 10 directly supports the built-in oven 14.
Additionally, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 15 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,353, the free-standing warming appliance 10 can optionally be provided with a pair of cabinet support brackets 224, each having a generally planar main wall 226 and a tab 228 extending generally perpendicularly therefrom. The tabs 228 provide forward facing engagement surfaces that engage the rear surface of a cabinet front panel of a kitchen to prevent the chassis 20 of the warming appliance 10 from being pulled out of the cabinet 12 when the warmer drawer 22 is pulled out of the chassis 20.
A common design consideration that must be taken into account for all built in double oven installation scenarios is that an appropriate flow of cooling air and an appropriate removal of heated exhaust air must be provided for a number of reasons. For example, such cooling air flows and heated exhaust air removal must be arranged such that the selected cooking temperatures in the ovens are maintained. In connection with maintaining the selected oven cooking temperatures, it is typically provided that a predetermined quantity of heated exhaust air is removed from an oven. This removed heated exhaust air often comprises entrained cooking residues such as food particulates, steam vapor, grease matter, and other substances and the heated exhaust air must then be guided away from the ovens such that these substances do not contact and accumulate upon, for example, electrical wiring, is located next to the ovens. Additionally, it is frequently desired to introduce cooling air—in the form of air at the ambient temperature of the kitchen or other room in which the double ovens are located—to thereby achieve cooling of selected components of the double oven. For example, one design constraint is that oven door outer surfaces including oven door handles must not exceed a specified temperature. Thus, there is a need to provide, with respect to built-in units comprised of household appliances, and, in particular, a built in double oven, a cooling air and exhaust air flow arrangement for efficiently guiding exhaust air away from the upper oven and the lower oven while at the same time effectively flowing cooling air relative to the double oven combination to promote desired cooling of the double oven combination.